City to Sell Fort Greene Land for $1 in Exchange for Affordable Housing
The city is moving ahead with an affordable housing deal hammered out during the Bloomberg administration, and plans to sell the prime Fort Greene site on which it will be built to developer Jonathan Rose Companies for only $1, The New York Daily News revealed. The de Blasio administration is also pressuring the developer to keep the…
The city is moving ahead with an affordable housing deal hammered out during the Bloomberg administration, and plans to sell the prime Fort Greene site on which it will be built to developer Jonathan Rose Companies for only $1, The New York Daily News revealed. The de Blasio administration is also pressuring the developer to keep the apartments at 15 Lafayette Avenue, also known as BAM North Site II, affordable beyond the promised 30 years, the paper said.
It appears the total number of apartments may have changed since we last reported on the plan, in October of 2013. There will be 123 units, all rentals, with 73 at market rate and 50 set aside as affordable housing, according to the story. Of the latter, 25 units will go to those making 60 percent or less of the Area Median Income (AMI), and 24 units will be for renters making up to 130 percent AMI.
Plans still call for 2,800 square feet of retail space, most likely a restaurant, and 19,000 square feet of cultural space. Originally Eyebeam Art + Technology Center and Science Gallery International were supposed to occupy that cultural space, but apparently the deal fell apart.
The site is located just across the street from BAM’s Peter Jay Sharpe building at 30 Lafayette. Construction is expected to begin this spring and wrap by the end of 2016.
City to Sell Prime Land for $1 to Developer for 49 Below-Market-Rate Units [NYDN] GMAP
City Releases Rendering for Last BAM District Build, Announces Developer [Brownstoner]
Rendering by Dattner Architects/Bernheimer Architecture
I grew up in real affordable housing (Penn South) of which the tenancy was 100 percent working people — from immigrant garment workers (my family) to middle class professionals. More than 50 years after its opening it continues to offer decent, centrally located housing to thousands of New Yorkers — a great mix of journalists, teachers, social workers and others who couldn’t afford to stay in Manhattan otherwise. No poor doors, no frills. JFK came to the project’s dedication. Why is there no longer any political will to address the city’s housing crisis in a egalitarian, progressive manner?
In the world of development, “affordable” very specifically describes federal or state guidelines for affordability, depending on the source of funding. It’s not a subjective notion of what feels comfortable for people and says nothing about whether the market is affordable/unaffordable.